By Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit
For two years, we travelled the backroads of the Klein Karoo – up mountain passes, into forgotten valleys of the Swartberg, and through villages most people simply drive past on Route 62.
What we found became Klein Karoo Magic.
This is not a book about landscapes. It’s a book about the people who inhabit those landscapes of the Swartberg Ranges. We tried to capture that rebel spirit of those who live far from city lights, under a mountain, in all seasons. We found the people who sip witblits from the family still in the evenings.
To us, adventure isn’t climbing the Langeberg peaks or catching the cobra in the washing machine. It’s sitting across the table from the mountaineer and listening. However, in the case of the snake, we nervously chewed on Pavlova puddings while watching the catcher do his thing a couple of metres away from us.
We saw frenzied Saturday rugby in Van Wyksdorp. We lingered in biker bars swapping stories. We stayed with hermits, crafters, writers and artists.
We rode the rails into Toorwater Kloof on a mad bicycle contraption. We nearly fell over a mountain pass, and bathed in water that last saw daylight thousands of years ago. And we picked sweet hanepoot grapes at harvest time in Calitzdorp.
Normally research means libraries and long Google sessions. This time it meant burning diesel, getting mud on our bakkie, and letting the characters of the Klein Karoo tell their own stories.
The result?
Nearly 400 pages of passion, humour and remarkable lives – with colour photographs on every second page.
If you’ve ever wondered who really lives in the Klein Karoo, what drew them there and what keeps them there, this is the book calling your name.
R400 — including taxes and courier within South Africa.
First-edition, author-signed copies available from mid-May 2026.
To pre-order, email Julie at julie@karoospace.co.za.
“Marais & Du Toit deliver some of the finest, most vivid travel writing I’ve ever read.” – Bill Nasson, Professor Emeritus of History, Stellenbosch University.
